sporadic Nintendo griping

Fanboys and Destructoid

Just read a great article over at Destructoid. Heres a notable quote:
“If I called you stupid and said that everything you do was crap, you think Nintendo’s going to be right there to tell me otherwise? Then why offer them the same loyalty?”

While I agree that fanboyism is stupid, I think the author underestimates the power of a company that takes care of its customer. He babbles on about “corporations” and whatnot and that these people don’t care about you, and while the truth is that they don’t (care) the companies that appear to take care of their customers build a lot of loylaty that way.

As in the case of the guy who was told he needed to pay $150 to replace is PS2 and was given a free Xbox when there was the slightest hint of a problem with his unit. I mean, I’d feel pretty kindly towards microsoft myself if that had happened to me.

There’s a huge difference between a fanboy and a person who is loyal to a brand that has treated him well, I think.

I only skimmed through the article, but it seems like another of Destructoid’s sucker punches to the fanboy crowd. It’s too easy, yet they do more finger pointing than rationale.

The thing about customers being treated fairly is something i’ve thought about before, and i agree with you too. But at the same time, in gaming people get blindly loyal just out of their hate or fabricated hate of other companies that stems from getting too involved in the politics of it all. It becomes a stupid nerd sport where people say “hey, i like the way you stroke my dick better than they do so i’ll only give you money” and are oblivious to when they’re being abused via that loyalty and reliability with blatant ass-pounding.

Nintendo is a typically crowd-pleasing company when they’re dealing with their own, which is why they have a rabid base of fans. On the same token, the loyalty bit is bought into and the problems with others are overblown to justify every single right or wrong thing the favorite does. While i understand company loyalty in general, it’s a stupid thing to tie yourself to one avenue like that when no one entity is ever flawless.

There’s not always fanboyism in loyalty, but there’s always loyalty in fanboyism. For instance, all the people who on the turn of a dime talked themselves into dismissing graphics as the least important factor of a game just because Nintendo said they weren’t as important. There are tons of people who like Nintendo because of their reputation, like me, but we’re vastly outnumbered by dudes who go into detail about how Miyamoto beat them off in a dream and so they must buy all Nintendo-branded plastic.